


Deathjam '86

by theBelgravian



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Gen, M/M, Punklock AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-03-31
Updated: 2013-03-31
Packaged: 2017-12-07 01:49:21
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,704
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/742766
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/theBelgravian/pseuds/theBelgravian
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Cambridge student reporter John covers an amateurs' punk rock concert, where he meets entrancing violinist Sherlock.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Deathjam '86

**Author's Note:**

> Written for fuckyeahteenlock's March 31st Punklock Contest!

The night of the concert was dark, darker than winter nights in Cambridge usually were. John wondered whether this would be a good opening in his forthcoming article covering the concert and decided quickly that it wouldn’t. His mind wandered back to the present as his gloved hands fisted together against the cold February wind. John shoved them deep into his jacket pockets, his left hand curling around the pencil and the spine of the small notepad nestled there.

“John!” a voice called out from outside the Cambridge University Student Union, and John looked up to see Mike Stamford waving at him. He quickly crossed the road between him and the Student Union, tapping Mike’s outstretched fist lightly with his own.

“Alright, mate?” he said, taking in Stamford’s dramatic appearance with some shock.

John was used to seeing Mike in fairly toned-down dress—usually just black clothes, a silver plug in one ear and black eyeliner—but tonight he’d gone all out in a full-length black trench-coat adorned with silver rings, lime-green platform shoes, and a black trash bag held together with safety pins over his chest, his mouth painted a black matte.

Punk wasn’t really John’s scene like it was Stamford’s—he much preferred classical music—but he didn’t mind the growing craze quite as much as his fellow staff at the university newspaper. His editor-in-chief had therefore assigned him with the task of covering the one-night amateurs’ concert when the other staffers had moaned and groaned at the prospect. The Cambridge Student was nothing if not meticulous in covering campus events, no matter how anti-establishment—anti-newspaper—they might be.

“We should get inside, show’s about to start,” Stamford said as he turned to walk towards the open double-doors, soon disappearing in the crush of black-clad youths.

John flipped up the collar of his coat and descended into the union basement after Stamford. Showing his student ID at the door, he was granted entrance by a blue-haired girl with matching blue studs in her cheek dimples. John realized that he stood out like a sore thumb with his intact blue jeans and wool-lined tan coat among the bodies in shredded black clothes and spiked collars crowding him from all directions, but he didn’t mind. Stamford was well known and liked in the Cambridge punk scene and John knew that as long as he stayed close to him, he wouldn’t be harassed by anyone.

The low-ceilinged concert hall was crowded and already smelling a lot like alcohol and reefer. John followed Stamford as the bigger boy cut a path in the crowd to the makeshift bar at the opposite wall.

“Cheers,” he said, taking a sip of the beer that Stamford handed him before turning his eyes to the dimly lit stage where the show was starting.

The only person on stage was a dark-haired boy in spectacularly ripped jeans, fitting a wired microphone to the stand in the center of the stage and laughing loudly.

“Hey, you FUCKERS!” he yelled into the mic by way of testing it. His voice was surprisingly cheerful, John thought, standing in defiance of his deathly appearance.

The audience turned towards the stage when he spoke and the main lights in the room dimmed until the stage and the boy were the only things John could make out.

“My name is Greg Lestrade and THIS IS DEATHJAM!” the boy yelled.

The audience roared with approval, a few of the most enthusiastic up front pounding on the low wooden stage.

“Hope you’re ready for some of the best music you’ve heard ALL FUCKING YEAR,” he continued, a barely suppressed giggle escaping his lips. He was clearly already more than a little drunk. “We’ve got some amazing acts tonight—.”

“Fuck you, Greg!” someone yelled amiably from the front row and Greg, seeming to recognize the boy, grinned widely and threw him the bird in response.

“Up first—let me hear your scream for Irene Addled and the Trixes with I Knew WHAT HE LIKED!” Greg said, yelling the last three words as the mic screeched in protest.

“Oh, excellent,” John heard Stamford say from somewhere on his right.

He took another swig of cold beer, his eyes not leaving the stage.

The crowd cheered wildly as three girls in black corsets and garters led by a dark-haired beauty carrying a whip took the stage. She snapped her whip with a cheeky smile as her band plugged in and four blood-red lights flashed on cue at the foot of the stage.

John found it hard to take his eyes off of Irene as the Trixes tore through their Joan-Jett-esque set and Irene drove the crowd crazy with on-tempo cracks of her whip and occasionally groping of her lead guitarist during the redheaded girl’s solos. She seemed to have an easy charm about her that endeared her to the audience, perhaps a little unfortunately: during their third song a boy near the front made a grab for Irene’s ankle, almost pulling her off the stage. He received a kick in the side of the head from a red-and-black high-heeled shoe.

“Hands to yourself my man, you know I don’t swing that way,” Irene shouted down the mic and a smattering of cheers and raucous laughter broke out in the front few rows of the crowd.

John gave a short laugh and jotted down a few notes in his notepad as the next band took the stage.

The crowd had swelled considerably by now. Pierced bodies in black leather jackets pressed in towards the stage, singing along with the cacophonous screechings of the second band—an all-male band called Incest, John had noted—and swigging beer from glittering bottles. It was a loud and enthusiastic crowd, but they quieted down enough for each band to be heard when each began their respective set. Clearly most people were there primarily for the music, despite what John would have thought.

Stamford was getting more and more vocal as he finished beer after beer; John, still only on his first, was feeling pleasantly buzzed. He didn’t get many opportunities to interact with the punk crowd on his doctoral track at Cambridge, and always found it refreshingly unpretentious when he did.

He watched a few more bands perform, writing down whatever seemed interesting about them, which wasn’t very much. After Irene Addled the performances had become steadily worse. The guitarist playing now was alternating rapidly between the same C and E minor chords and nothing else while his singer howled incoherently down the mic.

An hour later John had filled only one page of his notepad with notes and was starting to wonder how much longer the show was. The hall was getting unbearably hot and smelly as a spiky-haired androgynous person had vomited near John’s feet and he tried in every moment to avoid stepping in the sick, which was proving to be difficult with coeds slam-dancing into him from all directions.

John glanced over at Stamford and found him head-banging along with the music and wearing an expression on his face like that of one witnessing the Ascension. John sighed and made the decision to stay for one last performance before ducking out and hoping that he didn’t miss anything spectacular at the end of the show. Stamford wouldn’t leave with him yet, but at this point John didn’t really care.

Greg sprang back up on stage as the latest group of performers unplugged. He swayed drunkenly, gripped the mic stand to steady himself, and his devil-may-care giggles amplified throughout the room.

“Well,” he said finally, grinning at the crowd. “Our next and final act needs no introduction. Finally, the one you’ve all been waiting for: the one, the only, MANTELPIECE SKULLS!”

The crowd roared and Stamford almost fell over in his excitement; John strained upwards to see the low stage over the crush of people.

A tall boy with hair in dark green gravity-defying spikes appeared on the stage, carrying what John thought looked like half a violin, but as he moved to take his position on stage John realized that it was in fact an electric violin.

In the stage lights the boy’s pale, high-cheek-boned face looked skeletally white, contrasting starkly with the absolute black of the studded top and sinfully tight jeans that he wore under his vampiric greatcoat. He didn’t look once at the adoring audience as he plugged in his violin and clenched it between his chin and his shoulder. Another boy took the mic and a pretty black girl settled down behind a much-abused drum-set. John watched, now utterly captivated, as they began their set.

John realized suddenly that he knew the violinist from somewhere else: a classical concert over at the music school that his friend Molly had dragged him to the previous semester where this boy had been the first violin in the orchestra. Flushing, he remembered how he hadn’t been able to tear his eyes away from the posh, long-limbed violinist with the red ring through the middle of his bottom lip like a line of blood.

“Before you ask,” Stamford yelled in John’s ear. “That guy’s Sherlock Holmes, and you’d probably do well to stay away from him. Just a warning.”

John only heard the first part of what Stamford had said. The crowd was being stirred into a hot frenzy by the Mantelpiece Skulls. Music poured out of Sherlock’s instrument sounding like nothing John had ever heard played on a violin before. Fast and heavy, heavily-distorted notes pounded out of the stacked speakers as the drummer kept a fast, hard beat and the singer sang in turns about a murderous taxi driver, a ferocious hound, and a Chinese mafia ring. All the precision and delicacy of the classical performance was gone as Sherlock sawed ferociously on his violin, producing melodies as intense as gunshot wounds and fast little trills that made the tips of John’s fingers feel numb.

Sherlock wasn’t indulging himself in any stage antics. In fact, except for his bow-arm, he was barely moving. John had a thought that head banging or anything of the sort would make it difficult for the first-year to keep his violin in place. The singer, on the other hand, was leaping about the stage like a maniac. Somehow, the contrast between the two of them worked perfectly.

Before John knew it was happening, Mantelpiece Skulls had finished their set, to ecstatic shrieks and resounding cheers. Sherlock moped the sweat off his brow with one sleeve and—finally—looked at the audience. Less than a second passed before he flipped his bow in salute and faded into the darkness at the back of the stage.

John knew suddenly who he needed to interview for his story.

 

 

\--*--

 

“We’re going to Murray’s for some beers if you wanna come,” Stamford yelled to John as the crowd broke up and started heading towards the exits.

“…Right,” John yelled back distractedly. “I’m going to get some quotes from the bands.”

Stamford frowned as if he hadn’t heard and John gestured towards the stage. Stamford's expression cleared and he nodded.

“It’s at the apartment building across the main road,” he yelled as his friends called impatiently to him from the door. “If you change your mind. Entrance C, apartment 21.”

John nodded to show he’d heard and turned against the flow of people to make his way to the stage door as quickly as he could, not wanting to miss his opportunity to interview Mantelpiece Skulls and Sherlock Holmes.

When he’d finally pushed his way past the last stragglers he found the stage door guarded by the show host—Greg—and a tall boy with two safety pins through his left ear and dyed red curls that looked just like Sherlock’s had at the holiday concert. Greg was leaning back against the taller boy, who had an arm across Greg’s chest, holding him upright. His mouth was at Greg’s ear, whispering something that was making the boy giggle.

John caught Greg’s eye and pointed at the door behind him. “Sorry, are the bands through there?” he asked. “I’m from the Cambridge Student, just wanted to get a quote or two….”

He really _should_ get a quote from the chief organizer of the whole event, John thought, but it didn’t seem like Greg would really able to put together a coherent sentence at the moment.

Greg leaned or stumbled slightly to the side to let John pass, the tall boy moving with him and giving John an annoyed look.

John pushed the door open with difficulty. It let out onto to a long, badly-lit hallway with unadorned wooden doors on either side and fire exits at both ends. John was just wondering which room he’d find Sherlock behind when one of the doors burst open and the bearded singer of Mantelpiece Skulls came out in a rage.

“I’ve had it, Sherlock, I really have,” he was yelling as he stomped angrily towards John. “You’re arrogant, self-centered and rude and Sally and I have both had more than enough!”

“Good,” an irritated baritone voice issued from the room the singer had just left, shortly followed by its owner, still holding his violin and looking every bit as dramatic as he had on stage. “Your singing is sub-standard anyway, Anderson. I’m sure I can find someone three times as good out there _right now_.”

“Well, good luck getting them to work with you,” Anderson sneered. “I certainly won’t again… Freak!”

He pulled open the door John had just come through and left through it with one last disdainful glance at Sherlock.

Sherlock’s slate-colored, coal-lined eyes flicked to John, locking with his briefly and intensely.

“I don’t do interviews,” he said curtly before turning and stalking down the hallway.

John blinked and started after him. “Can’t you just—”

“Come with me if you want,” Sherlock interrupted John as he pushed open the fire exit at the end of the hallway, which alarmed angrily at them as they went through and out into the frigid night air. “I’m making an appearance at a party—might give you a few words there, but I simply can’t stand this idiotic building a second longer. ”

_Okay._

John had to jog a little to keep up with Sherlock’s long strides as he crossed the main street without a hint of regard for any of the cars on it. Shouts and curses followed them both as they walked up the steps to a grey-brick apartment building. Sherlock pressed his black-varnished forefinger to the bell of apartment 21.

“I think some of my friends are here,” John said conversationally as they stood waiting for the door to open.

Sherlock fixed him with a curious, searching look and said nothing.

Rudeness of this sort was usually a relationship deal-breaker for John, but for some reason he found himself wanting to stay with this violinist despite his insolence. There was something exciting about him, if not slightly dangerous, that agitated John’s blood like nothing else in recent years had done. Though he had only followed Sherlock across the street, it felt like he had just run a mile in direct sunlight.

The door to 21 banged open and he and Sherlock walked into the boisterous atmosphere of the student apartment.

“Sherlock!” a few people cried in greeting as they walked in, though John didn’t miss the tension with which they reacted to his sudden appearance. It was obvious that Sherlock made them nervous, and John didn’t blame them—Sherlock made him nervous as well, his fierce intelligence brutally intimidating.

“Come on,” he said to John, and he cut a path through the center of where people were dancing—John saw Greg again in the doorway to the kitchen, wrapped tight in the Sherlock look-alike’s arms and grinding to the music as he nursed another beer—over to an open window.

He swung himself up onto it with practiced ease and straddled the sill, pulling a crumpled pack of cigarettes out of his left coat pocket gracefully. Sherlock seemed aware of the effect he’d had on the other party-goers, but John was quite sure that Sherlock also didn’t care in the least. In fact, he seemed to be enjoying it.

“I’d offer you one but I know you won’t take it,” Sherlock said, pushing a cigarette between his pierced lips and lighting it with a casual elegance that John was slowly starting to realize was inherent to him. “Bad thing to be doing as a medical student and all.”

“How did you know I’m—”

“Your hands, John, the indentations on your index finger, middle finger and thumb all point to frequent scalpel usage,” Sherlock said, blowing a delicate tendril of smoke out the window. “You’re obviously an upperclassman so I attribute this to the fact that you’re now spending most of your course hours in the lab ‘healing’ corpses, am I wrong?”

Sherlock cocked a dark eyebrow at him and John tried not to stare at the affecting tableau Sherlock was creating in the windowsill. He failed miserably.

A half a dozen questions whirled around his head before he finally settled on “How do you know my name?”

The corner of Sherlock’s mouth turned up: he was clearly enjoying this, John thought. And he’d been lying when he’d said that he didn’t do interviews. He _loved_ being interviewed.

“Well, you’re the only one from your paper that could ever be convinced to cover Deathjam,” Sherlock replied. “I’m… familiar with your staff,” he continued with un-apologetic disdain. “All idiots who wouldn’t know fact-checking if it bit them in the face. I’ve had to send in so many corrections this year… not that they ever pay attention.”

He pulled on his cigarette again, the tip glowing like a small and ashy bonfire.

“Never you, though,” Sherlock finished. “Your articles are always perfectly factual.”

John gaped at Sherlock, his hand frozen in place halfway to his pocket. Sherlock ducked his head with something like self-consciousness, but John didn’t miss the way Sherlock’s lip quirked as he stared at the tip of his cigarette.

“Thanks,” John finally managed. He decided that he would ignore the fact that Sherlock had just insulted his entire staff… for now.

Awkwardly he pulled out his notepad and pen and sat down in an empty chair next to Sherlock, uncomfortably aware of Sherlock’s eyes glancing over the notes already written there. He breathed a sigh of relief when Sherlock seemed to have no comment to make about them.

“So, have you ever played Deathjam before?” John began his interview.

“Last semester was the first time,” Sherlock replied, his eyes flicking out to look over Cambridge University, which was visible through the window. “Different band back then, we were called Mycroft’s Fat.” Sherlock snorted a barely-contained laugh. “However _some_ people just won’t work with me. Idiots.”

“What inspires you to play this kind of music?” John asked as he wrote a note.

There was a pause as Sherlock pulled on his cigarette.

“Boredom,” he answered finally. “Needed something to fill the time between lectures and this did the trick… I used to think there was only Vivaldi that could take one’s mind off the futility of the human existence: complicated, clever notes that only a few are clever enough to put together. Then one night I heard the Clash on the radio and, well, there were complicated, clever notes that anyone _could_ put together, but no one seemed to be putting together _right_. So, I decided to help them out a little. Only punk violin in the world; I invented the genre.”

Sherlock delivered this speech as though he was in a life-and-death race to get the words out. John broke a sweat scrambling to write it all down; he wished he’d had the foresight to bring a tape recorder. _But who could ever have foreseen Sherlock?_

“The violin turned out to be a wonderful substitute for the electric bass or guitar—much more versatile. I experimented with a few different amplifiers and found the best one to be made by Fender, although only the ones from their Ohio factory were any good at all. The steel they use there is the best tempered that there is, and gives the slightly distorted sound that my fans adore so much”

Sherlock lunged suddenly down to pick up his instrument and then pulled the bow across it with a flourish. Three dissonant but crystal-clear notes sounded in John’s ears.

“Do you play any other venues?” John asked. A small voice at the back of his head whispered that this question was really more for himself than for the paper.

“Hudson’s on Baker Street in London,” Sherlock answered. He drew deeply on his cigarette and then stubbed it out on the windowsill. “During the breaks. Good way to get away from my stupid older brother.”

A loud cheer erupted from the middle of the room where Stamford had just finished a line of vodka shots and John and Sherlock were momentarily distracted.

Sherlock looked back at John a seconds later, prompting him with a sly look.

“Uhhh, you play classically as well, don’t you?” John asked, now quite sure he was asking only for himself.

“Every once in a while, yes,” Sherlock answered, nodding towards the music school hall just visible through the window. “Been following my career, have you?”

John flushed and looked down at his hands. “My friend dragged me to the Holiday Show last semester,” he answered.

“I see,” Sherlock replied, then was silent for a moment, thoughtful.

“Does he _drag_ you to a lot of shows?” he asked.

Sherlock’s eyes were wide with a curiosity and excitement that John had never before seen there. Had _John_ really inspired that in Sherlock?

“A few a month, yeah.”

Silence fell between them for a moment, a moment that became a calm ocean where the two of them bobbed and floated together and alone in the world.

Then Sherlock spoke again.

“Want to be dragged to a few more?”

“Oh god, yes," John replied. 

John didn’t know what he’d gotten himself involved in with those three words, but he knew that he couldn’t wait for it to begin.

**Author's Note:**

> Please leave comments, I love feedback!


End file.
